Soul Devourer’s laughter ricocheted off the trembling walls, wild, exultant, and cruel. “Every last one of you will die! No mortal, no god, can bar my path!”
Outside, the Demonic Cultivator army howled closer. Two hundred thousand demonic souls, flanked by tens of thousands of Demon Cultivators, surged toward the palace like a living tide, drowning courtyards and battlements alike.
Pillars of demonic aura spiraled into the sky, merging with thunder-swollen clouds until the entire Celestia City lay swaddled in a single, suffocating night.
“Behold your fate!” the Soul Devourer sneered. “Today you die, and with you the whole of level six. No one will stand in my way!”
Despair pooled in every gaze turned his way. Many knew, with a silent finality, that they would likely perish here, and that level six might perish with them. Yet Onneas, blood streaking chin, forced herself upright. She wiped the crimson away and leveled a steady glare at Soul Devourer.
“Soul Devourer, even if we die here, you will never rule unchallenged. Someone, someday, will end you!”
He scoffed, eyes glinting with scorn. “You’ll never live to witness that day!”
Demonic aura erupted from his frame and barreled toward Onneas and party in a rolling stormfront of shadow.
As the wave of demonic aura rushed closer, hearts tightened with fresh hopelessness. Stone walls cracked. Glazed roof tiles rained down. The entire throne hall shuddered as if it might collapse in a single sigh.
Beyond the shattered doors, the Demonic Cultivator horde roared with triumph. Victory was, to them, only seconds away.
Inside, Onneas, Jared, Aurelius, Artemis, and Yuliana pressed back-to-back. Despair etched their faces, yet in every eye burned a stubborn ember that refused to extinguish, even as darkness roared in to claim them.
The confrontation had twisted into something no oracle, scholar, or warmonger could have foreseen. All strategies lay in tatters, discarded like broken banners on a blood-soaked field.
“Brat, back down. None of you can match Soul Devourer. Hand the reins over to me. I can stall for a heartbeat or two, long enough for the others to run while they still can.”
The voice belonged to Vermilion Demon Lord, missing for ages, presumed dust, and now it hissed through the smoky silence like the strike of a viper.
“Mr. Vermilion!” Jared gasped, relief and dread colliding in his chest. “You went silent without a trace. I searched every corner of my consciousness field and found nothing. What happened to you?”
“Questions later!” impatience cracked like thunder beneath the Vermillion Demon Lord’s words. “If I survive, I will explain. For now, surrender your body. Every second you hesitate drags us closer to oblivion!”
Jared nodded once, teeth clenched, then loosened the defenses around his consciousness field. The moment his safeguards fell, the ancient presence surged upward and seized command of flesh and bone. Black mist swarmed him, shrouding his frame in a storm of shadow.
When the haze peeled away, Jared’s bearing had turned feral, an emperor of night awakened inside a mortal shell. His eyes shone a murderous crimson. From every pore burst a suffocating demonic aura that warped the air, bending light itself around his silhouette.
Gasps rippled through friend and foe alike. Only Flaxseed, sweat beading beneath his patched hat, understood the truth.
Vermilion Demon Lord once again rode Jared’s body like a war-horse.
Soul Devourer’s onrushing gloom met the Dragonslayer Sword with a single upward slash. The dark tide split cleanly in two, evaporating as though it had never existed.
“Vermilion?” Soul Devourer’s pupils narrowed to pinpoints. “So, you still cling to the world, you old brat!”
“You’re breathing, aren’t you? Why should I be ashes yet?” Jared, yet not Jared, answered with a chill that frosted every syllable.
“Hahaha! You survived, but you’re nothing more than a ragged shred of soul hitchhiking in a borrowed body. Even when you possessed flesh of your own, you couldn’t defeat me. Now you’re a ghost in tatters, how dare you stand against me?!” Soul Devourer’s laughter pounded the palace walls, each note a drumbeat of contempt.
Both Soul Devourer and Vermilion Demon Lord had once roamed level nine as Demonic Cultivators. Instinct alone allowed them to recognize one another the instant Vermilion Demon Lord took control of Jared’s body.
“I don’t need to kill you,” Vermilion replied, blade rising. ‘I only have to keep you busy…”
He launched forward with the speed of a thunderbolt, Dragonslayer Sword shrieking through the air. As shot past his stunned allies, barked, “Move! Now!”
